Judge sentences man to 20 years in child porn case

Wednesday

Apr 16, 2008 at 7:16 PMApr 16, 2008 at 7:18 PM

BY SUEVON LEESTAR-BANNER

OCALA -- A Marion County man charged with multiple counts of possession of child pornography was found guilty Wednesday afternoon on all 36 counts, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Michael D. Burton, 40, was arrested in June 2007 for downloading and viewing images of child pornography after an undercover operation led by the Gainesville unit of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force located and seized a computer at his mother's home that was participating in the sharing of child pornography files. A search of the computer revealed 677 files and 132 video files of suspected child porn, with many files depicting children under the age of 10 engaged in various sex acts with adults. While under investigation, Burton admitted to downloading the images using the computer at his mother's home, located in the 6800 block of N.W. 60th Street Road. An engineering tech employee with the Marion County Road Department, Burton would search for images using terms like "Lolita," according to his arrest papers. In court, Burton testified that he often used the file-sharing service Limewire to download thousands of images of adult pornography, but never intended to download images of underage children. He said he would download chunks of files at a time, and then delete questionable files, since Limewire, he explained, was "riddled with child pornography." He described his habit of viewing adult pornographic images as "an addiction" that lasted for a year and a half, during which his 14-year marriage had crumbled and he lost himself in pills and alcohol. "I was devastated, suicidal, out of my mind basically," Burton told jurors. In his closing argument, defense lawyer Dean Boland said his client made an active attempt to delete any questionable files, that court testimony over the course of the trial revealed no "active trading" of child pornography, and that a folder Burton created on the computer's hard drive to preserve pornographic images did not include any content of minors. "People use computers everyday, in their personal lives and their work lives. Files come down to them everyday they didn't ask for," Boland said. During the trial, presided over by Circuit Judge Brian Lambert, Assistant State Attorney Nick Camuccio showed jurors content from several of the 36 child pornographic files retrieved from the computer's hard drive. They were given the 36 files to take back to the jury room during deliberations, which lasted several hours. Burton faced up to 5 years for each count of child pornography possession, which in Florida is a third-degree felony.